Archive for June, 2010

A flat bar with three hills was definitely not what I expected even though there is an image on the wrapper. I imagined it to look totally different. And I expected the ‘whole nut’ filling to be different as well: The nuts are not nearly filling those huge balls on the bar. (ps.: I found the nuts in the second and third container and they were a lot taller!) The hazelnuts get almost lost in them. Instead, this bar is filled with a dark crème which I expect to be a hazelnut crème; as there could not be 17.5% of hazelnuts in there otherwise.

The treat smells a lot like hazelnut and the filling’s aroma is totally alike Nutella, maybe a little less sweet. Now this treat seems more tempting to me than it was when it lay in my chocolate box under my bed.
The chocolate is alright, I don’t sense a lot of it as it is overpowered by the sweet but nutty hazelnut crème and the nuts inside the bar. The hazelnuts add a really cool “real” nut taste to the sweet hazelnut crème, they make the best part. The wafer tastes alright as well, but they don’t hold anything outstanding.

The texture is nothing over-exciting but very pleasant. The wafer is crispy, and so are the nuts. They make the bar chewy and mix up perfectly with the really fluid crème filling. I am not sure whether I prefer this Duplo over the common original Duplo. It is less sweet and a little more satisfying than a regular Duplo, but in no way it can beat a regular dark Duplo.

Besides two white chocolate bars, there are two milk covered ones as well coming with the second summer edition by Lindt. Somehow they really do have two different editions. Well, good for me 🙂 One of them has a yogurt-peach-apricot filling. Sounds pretty tempting to me as I was a huge fan of apricot-peach yoghurt when I was a child.

And my first impression was really good. There is a fruity yoghurt aroma coming from the inside of the chocolate and it smells exactly like the yoghurt I used to eat when I was younger.

The chocolate layer is a nice mild milk chocolate. I prefer the white version, but I have to admit that the chocolate is (for a milk chocolate) really balanced, not sickly, firm while chewing but smooth while melting. It is alright and worth its price.

The filling though is not as good as I expected it to be. The strong aroma isn’t as nearly as intensive in taste and is nearly even with the chocolate. That means that sometimes you will sense a rather sweet chocolate taste, and sometimes there is this fruity and slightly sour yoghurt flavor. The fruit in there could be more intensive, and I’d like to have some more pieces of fruit. The pieces which are in there add a short and chewy really cool amount of sourness to the treat. Personally, I think they make the best component. The texture of the filling is, apart from the small crispy pieces of fruit, not as smooth as I am used to Lindt fillings which I think is a pity as I had hoped for a smoother filling when I read ‘yoghurt’ on the wrapper. Yoghurt isn’t crumbly unless it is way beyond it’s BBD.
Trying to differentiate between the peach and the apricot simply is impossible. Neither the pellets look alike.

All in all, this isn’t my flavor of chocolate. It is below the usual Lindt quality and for me this is the least tempting summer chocolate produced by Lindt as it simply not fruity enough, too crumbly and lacks a je ne sais quoi. And somehow I feel they just messed up the combination. I imagine that this treat could be better with either darker or white chocolate.

This is my first review of Zentis, a well known German food producer. They sell a lot of bakery ingredients and breakfast thins, as well as marzipan and nougat bars. Two different types are typical found near a cash in the supermarket.
This dark chocolate coated marzipan bar consists of six slightly marked containers, but basically it is a one-piece bar.

The dark chocolate is rich and firm, it crunches a little when I divided it into two parts. Still, I can sense the marzipan lying beyond it and it certainly has a rather sweet than nutty aroma. Even though this is a bitter chocolate, there is some smoothness left. I have no idea how much cocoa is in there, the wrapper just says “chocolate”, but it’s delicious.

This marzipan is somehow strange. It is sweet but not sickly, goes well with the bitter chocolate coating. I definitely miss a stronger nut flavor. 37% of marzipan still is half of the mass that is filling the dark chocolate, but this certainly is not “the finest marzipan quality”.

I like the firm chocolate layer in contrast to the smooth but still chewy marzipan. You cannot peal off the coating, which is good since it does not get crumbly. The top coating is a little thicker than the rest of the bar which makes the thing a little crunchier.

All in all, the marzipan bar is good, but nothing really special. There are better marzipan bars out there, but the Zentis bar is definitely worth the price. If I was short on money, I’d take this over the Niederegger Marzipan treats, as it is less expensive. A nice treat for its price!

Finally, I’m back. I’ve been home for a week, but I really wasn’t able to post anything. In fact, I wasn’t able to get any things done, despite I was feeling really well. I wrote some reviews, but I could not get myself up to work on my photos and blog. I hope I’ll be able to keep track now, I plan to add one or the other additional review, as I’ve lots of them done. Just need to resize and work on the pictures I’ve taken.

Above you see a halal Haribo hotdog. It was very smooth and the sausage was one of the best foam-jelly mix gums I’ve ever eaten. It wasn’t too fruity, but too artificial either, but what was really awesome was the texture. Just the right balance between soft and chewy, really cool! The foam wasn’t as tasteless as usual Haribo foam, wich was a plus as well. No real rating, but it’s a must try if you only eat halal products!

No real rating, but some thoughts on this leftover from, guess what, right, Easter: This Lindt egg comes in a noble, shiny golden-green foil.

The texture of the chocolate is smooth and creamy, as usual Lindt chocolate. The egg is filled with a creamy green crème containing little crumbles of pistachio, which add a little bit of crisp to the bar. The general taste of the crème is sweet and milk-chocolaty, with a slightly bitter aftertaste of pistachio. I like the idea of that treat, but it would have been better with a dark chocolate, or a richer nut flavor.

This is the third summer edition version of ritter sport and comes with milk chocolate filled with forest berry yogurt.

The smell is fresh and fruity, similar to strawberry or raspberry yogurt. The smell of chocolate is rather in the background, but you still sense the scent of it when holding it closer to your nose.

This one has a very thick bottom topped with purple-pink yogurt. I would have preferred more filling instead of the chocolate, as with Ritter Sport, the filling usually makes the chocolate. The yogurt contains some pieces of fruit and rice flakes, but the rice flakes aren’t really worth mentioning. The filling is the smoothest of the three summer edition fillings, and you might miss some diversion in here. But I wouldn’t call it boring, as it still contrasts the not-too hard chocolate coating well.

The taste is fabulous. At first you taste the sweet milk chocolate melting easily. It is creamy and fills your entire mouth with a nice amount of chocolate flavor. Then, as you get to the filling, there is a fresh and sour yogurt taste with berry-power mixing up with the chocolate. I like the contrast between sour and sweet here, they blend very well and it fits to the summer season.

So, after having tried all the summer versions, I can say that they are some of the best Ritter Sport versions available. I’d love to be able to get them throughout the year, but being on sale only in summer makes them really special and worth buying each year again. I’d really recommend every single flavor of them: stracciatella if you are not into the combination of fruit and chocolate, and the other two versions if you like a yogurt-fruity taste.

Here we have another one of the 2010 summer mix. White chocolate filled with a passion fruit-peach yogurt.

The texture is really crumbly; the chocolate tends to fall into pieces easily. I am a little surprised by this fact, as I am used to a better chocolate quality by Ritter Sport. Unfortunately, but expected after I have the chocolate spread everywhere after cutting a container into two pieces, it really lacks creaminess. Compared to other yogurt filled Ritter Sport chocolates, this one has a very thick coating, especially the top.

Despite of the missing creaminess, the white chocolate is alright. The chocolate contains a little too much sugar instead of milk. Not too good, but you can eat it. Ritter Sport has never been famous for producing white chocolate bars, and they should stick to their darker versions.

The filling is creamier than the chocolate and melts easily in your mouth. The peach and passion-fruit pieces sparkle on your tongue, a really cool feeling. Its taste is awesome. For a chocolate filling it is really sour and fresh.

So, basically, I really like the filling, but the chocolate is alright. The mix is alright and tasty as well, but I am missing a better quality chocolate. The filling alone would be higher rated, as it is really well done.